Posted
March 02, 2021 06:03:08
The single biggest and most complex vaccine campaign in the nation’s history has begun.
On February 22, Australia officially joined the global race to inoculate millions of people against COVID-19. Quarantine and border workers, frontline healthcare workers, and aged and disability care residents and staff are among the first in line.
The data on this page tracks how each of the states and territories is progressing in this mammoth task, as well as how Australia compares to the rest of the world.
Figures for Australia are sourced from federal, state and territory health authorities, while international numbers are from the Our World in Data project at the University of Oxford. Both sets of numbers are updated regularly.
The government has fallen drastically short of its target for the end of February, delivering just half of the expected number of jabs, according to the latest count.
As of February 28, just 33,702 doses had been administered nationwide, according to figures from the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet — far below the government’s goal of “at least 60,000 [doses] … by the end of February“.
Only three days earlier, on February 25, federal Health Minister Greg Hunt had told reporters Australia was “fully on track”, saying: “On the 60,000 doses, we are likely to achieve that either by Sunday night [February 28] or within 24 hours afterwards.”
However, figures sent to ABC News on March 1 show just 53 per cent of the 63,140 doses allocated for the first week of the campaign had been delivered.
Queensland and Victoria are the furthest behind, reaching only 22 per cent and 30 per cent of their respective allocations.
Tasmania leads the pack, delivering virtually its entire allocation, followed by the ACT at 84 per cent, then NSW at 74 per cent.
The federal government, which is responsible for vaccinations in aged and disability care, has delivered 72 per cent of its share of vaccinations.
The NT has delivered 64 per cent, WA 62 per cent and SA 35 per cent.
In January, the government said its initial target for the start of the rollout was 80,000 doses a week — roughly 11,500 a day.
The longer-term target is to fully vaccinate all adults (about 20 million people) by the end of October, which means rapidly ramping up to some 200,000 doses per day.
This equates to a daily rate of around 0.77 doses per 100 people, which would outpace the peak rates in both the US (0.55 per 100) and the UK (0.65 per 100), according to international figures.
One of the aims of vaccination is to achieve “herd immunity”, which is when enough people are immunised to stop or slow the spread of the disease.
The threshold for herd immunity varies with each disease. For measles, for example, about 95 per cent of the population needs to be immunised, whereas for polio, the figure is closer to 80 per cent.
The threshold for COVID-19 is still unknown but expert estimates range between 60 and 90 per cent.
Israel is vaccinating its population far faster than any other country.
More than half of Israel’s 9 million people have received the two doses needed to be fully vaccinated. (All the vaccines currently being used internationally require two doses several weeks apart.)
It is followed by the island nation of Seychelles, off the coast of East Africa, where nearly a quarter of people have been fully vaccinated, and United Arab Emirates, which has fully vaccinated more than 20 per cent of its population.
Seychelles also has the highest percentage of people — more than 28 per cent — partially inoculated against COVID-19, meaning they have received the first dose of a two-dose vaccine regime.
It is closely followed by the UK, at 28 per cent, and Chile, at less than 20 per cent.
Globally, some 100 countries have already delivered over 240 million vaccine jabs, which equates to roughly 3.2 doses per 100 people.
In China and the US, more than 1.5 million shots are given per day, on average — just one indication of the immense logistical exercise underway in both countries.
China is currently in the lead, administering 1.7 million doses per day, based on the seven-day rolling average, although Our World in Data’s figures for China have not been updated since February 9.
It is followed by the US, where 1.6 million jabs are given per day, on average.
India is a distant third, with an average of 0.5 million shots a day.
Adjusting the number of daily doses for population size puts Seychelles in front, with 1.7 doses per 100 people per day, based on the seven-day rolling average.
It is followed by Israel, at 1.3, then Maldives, with 0.9.
Massive chasms between rich and poor have already erupted in the contest to vaccinate against coronavirus.
In Africa, some 230,000 people (less than 0.02 per cent of the continent) are fully vaccinated, compared to more than 24 million people in North America (or 4.1 per cent of the continent).
Wealthy nations have been accused of hoarding vaccines while poor countries scramble to secure enough supplies to vaccinate their critical workers and most vulnerable citizens. Canada, for example, has bought enough doses to fully vaccinate its population five times over, according to figures compiled by the Duke Global Health Innovation Center (although it is possible that not all of these vaccines will be approved to market).
Meanwhile, the vast majority of low and lower-middle income countries cannot vaccinate even half their populations.
Nine vaccines are being used around the world. Pfizer-BioNTech’s vaccine is currently being used in 70 countries, making it the most widely adopted. It is followed by Oxford-AstraZeneca, which is used in 55 countries, then Moderna, currently administered in 28 countries.
Only the Johnson & Johnson vaccine requires a single shot; all others require two doses several weeks or months apart.
The Australian government has four separate agreements for the supply of COVID-19 vaccines. Pfizer-BioNTech and Oxford-AstraZeneca have both been provisionally approved for use by the Therapeutic Goods Administration.
The Pfizer vaccine is already being administered to “priority groups” of quarantine and border workers, frontline health workers and aged care and disability sector staff and residents. The government has said the AstraZeneca vaccine will be available in early March.
The Novavax vaccine is expected to be available in the first half of 2021.
Australia has also joined the COVAX Facility, a global collaboration working for equitable access to COVID-19 vaccines, with a commitment to purchase more than 25 million doses of COVID-19 vaccines for the Australian population.
Credits
Reporting: Inga Ting
Development: Katia Shatoba
Design: Alex Palmer
Notes
- Data used in this story are provided by federal and state/territory governments, either from press conferences, official websites and reports, or press releases.
- State and territory figures exclude doses administered as part of the federal government’s vaccination program in the aged care and disability sectors.
- Dates refer to when the figure is reported, and generally refer to doses or totals for the previous day.
- Federal and state/territory health authorities update their figures at different times of the day, so the numbers shown do not necessarily reflect the same point in time in each jurisdiction.
- As of March 1, 2021, only Victoria, SA, WA, Tasmania and the ACT are reporting exact daily figures. Neither the federal government nor NSW have committed to daily updates, and give rounded figures in most updates. The remaining jurisdictions report exact figures on occasion.
- For detailed notes about international figures see Our World in Data
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